No.18 - some curatorial observations

No.18 – some curatorial observations

/ June 30, 2012 / Leave a comment / News
It is one of the useful aspects of keeping a blog that there is the opportunity to directly communicate with an interested audience.  The project to restore No.18 has been charted over the last four years or so that I have been posting, and the project has certainly had its challenges.  As the restoration enters its final stages, with the completion of the rebuild now so close it is useful to review the original aims of the project and to reconsider the Conservation Management Plan (CMP) which was created, from original research, to inform the restoration and to provide a framework for recording the process and putting on record any variance from ‘the plan’.  With this project there are several variations and the CMP will fully document these (I have kept my original draft up to date throughout the last seven years!).  At this stage there are an increasing number of questions raised which require a process to either accept the change (and thus deviation from the absolute desirable) or try and find solutions to ensure that No.18 is as close to its 1936 appearance (the year it was rebuilt into the familar saddle tank guise and the furthest back in time we could take the locomotive without losing what is left of precious original material.  It is therefore as appropriate to use in the Colliery as is feasibly possible).
Here are some examples of the challenges, with some notes to explain them (needless to say fuller notes are kept in the CMP, which forms the definitive document relating to No.18, througout its history, not just as it stands today).
Below: As has been discussed here previously, the rear cabsheet is something of a compromise.  Due to the reduction in height of the brake column (was this in fact a substitution from another locomotive carried out at Seaham, possibly during the 1960 rebuild?) the rear sheet is some inches lower than ideal (in order for the handle to rotate).  In the future we may well replace the column to enable a taller rear sheet to be fitted.  The vertical handrails are still to be fitted, which will alter the appearance of the footplate quite a lot (we’ve tried them!).  The lining out will further change the outline shape and appearance of No.18.

Below: A close up of the cab now that most of the fittings are in place.  The pressure gauge has been removed to enable painting to be carried out. The new regulator handle has been made, note how it sweeps forwards to avoid the Salter spring balance.  The brass safety valve tube (to direct steam out of the cab from the safety valve itself), so ably made by David Young, is in place and the various valves are temporarily in place.  The interior finish will be wood grained, with black borders and yellow pinstriping borders – which should look very nice and very North Eastern!  The oil pots for the rear axleboxes are also to fit to the cabsheet and these have been overhauled and fitted to brackets made by Dave.

Below: When a new boiler barrel was fitted in the 1990s, the original contractor set the clack valve pads on the boiler centre-line.  In fact they should sit below this, and as a result the tank has had to be set higher than it would have been originally.  As a result of the chaning datum, and desire to minimise hole drilling in original material, the tank support brackets have had to be swept inwards to adequately support the tank.  This is quite a significant change in appearance, though will be partially hidden by sandboxes, injectors and pipework.  Note the oil box to the rear of the front bracket – this feeds the front axlebox on this side of the engine.  However, this compromise ensures that numerous other features, and the original footplating sections (and frames of course) are kept intact.

Hopefully the above notes are a useful insight into the process required to conserve the existing material and integrate the new, all to a standard to enable the locomotive to operate, hopefully for very many years to come.  It is probable that most observers would not notice, but as a museum we should aspire to the highest standards, and the engine, allied to the comprehensive drawings (which will be available to modellers and historians) and CMP will give the fullest story of No.18 and its 134 year history.  Other items contained within the CMP include lists of new components (so future students can identify what is original and what is not), patterns and a restoration diary.